


Sons of Dutch

by Defnotmeyo



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-02
Updated: 2020-06-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:15:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 8,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22523101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Defnotmeyo/pseuds/Defnotmeyo
Summary: Arthur and John.  Growing up and figuring out how to survive.  TB?  What TB?  I plan on addressing it but Arthur is my boah.
Relationships: John Marston/Arthur Morgan
Comments: 8
Kudos: 41





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> First fic for the fandom. Hopefully a few folks enjoy. It's a WIP, but I'm finishing it.
> 
> ALSO... this fic is NOT chronological. Basically one shots of the boahs growing up and learning to live with each other... with maybe some spice thrown in later.

“Ya wear two gun belts.”

“Once in a blue moon.” John was irritated and raspy. 

It was a short train job and it went okay, but the getaway went south and Arthur had shot out one of the locals’ mares. He’d been needling him ever since and John was trying to give him some space because he knew shooting out a horse always tore a little piece out of Arthur. 

“S’dumb, that’s all.”

Surly Arthur drove him nuts. “Yeah and you wear a neck tie and a bandana.” John quipped back and kicked at his boot. “S’dumb, too; looks stupid. Go to sleep.”

“Mmm.”

The fire crackled on.

Pulling jobs with Arthur was what John wanted. Dutch trusting them both to take a mark and work it right. Got him to a new spot in the gang. A man finally worthy of contributing, rather than being the street brat folks laughed and teased. The little brother, always. 

But Arthur had a way about him. Jobs never seemed to sit right, the way they did with Dutch. Arthur always felt guilty about something and tonight it was the god damn mare.

It was god damn frustrating and he didn’t really feel like having time for it.

Abigail was pregnant and heavy and insisting it was his. John thought that way, too, but she’d spent a few nights here and there with some of the boys… And with Dutch. He didn’t blame her, but just…

John barely pulled enough money to help keep the gang fed as it was now, let alone adding a baby. They were adding folks but not adding thieves, Abagail excepted, though Karen and Tilly could pull their weight.

But Arthur. Arthur fucking badass Morgan. Abbie had been in his tent two nights prior, confessing her feelings and worries on his bed. Didn’t get up to anything because Arthur kept an open room and the camp could see it all, but John had witnessed it all the same.

“You stink, Morgan,” he added, not expecting an answer.

They did. The ride out from the train was rough. And John wouldn’t forget the mare’s eyes as she was shot down.

Shit. Maybe he cared, too.

“We both stink, Marston. But sweaty balls only get washed in clean streams and you’d drown in one of ‘em.”

Christ. It was going to be a long night.

Still. The crickets sang and the campfire popped and eventually John was wore out. They’d stuck their bedrolls close. Better if one got hurt the other could grab the extra belt, bullets, and guns.

_Ya wear two gun belts._

Ass.

John sighed, a last sigh, and stretched his arms up over his head, then out to his side, flopping over.

“I can hear ya thinkin,'” Arthur grumbled. “Shut it.”

John didn’t. Stop thinking, that is.

What the hell was he going to do? Trying to be a man growing up in that camp. Abigail carrying his son or daughter. The train hadn’t been nearly enough, and Dutch was going to tell them as such the next morning. Come sunrise, the boys were headed for an ass-chewing and they both knew it.

“Weren’t enough, Art.”

The big man clapped a hand down on John’s wrist. “Never is. S’all right. He loves us all the same.”

Another sigh from John. “He don’t.”

“I know.”

John knew who got the better half of that equation. And so, with that, uneasily, he slept.


	2. Chapter 2

John had lived with being not enough all his life.

Arthur had, too, but it was a little different. 

In their respective years, Arthur had Dutch, and Hosea, and they both told him he did alright. Even when he went 'fishing' and brought them home market salmon. 

Still, when John went fishing, he damn nearly drowned. 

He'd remember it til his last day.

John had cast his line and a little riptide caught his ankle, dragged him in. Never felt anything like it. Sucked him under, and he was never taught to swim... fifteen fuckin' years old and this was how he was going to die. Even had a fish on the hook, God damn catfish, and Lord it would get fat and happy off the cheese he'd used as bait.

The swamp river they were in pulled him down, tight and hard, and John had never tasted worse water than that which before he almost died.

The hand on his shoulder was anything but gentle, hauling his ass up out of the river.

"Can't even trust you to do fishin' right."

He wasn't grateful. He was embarrassed. "Yeah, and you," he coughed up sloppy river water, "you bought store-caught salmon back in the day, ya fake."

Arthur had cocked back his head and John had cowed, still feeling the rip under his feet. Arthur had shot him a shit-eating type of grin and ducked his head away, but it was Arthur's hand kept him in place. 

"I ain't... I ain't against," John erupted in another set of coughs, "sayin thanks, but fuck, Arthur..." The guy coulda showed up earlier...

Arthur cuffed him on the ear for the curse, and the back, just to make sure he was okay. "Not your father, John."

"I know that." John did know that. Sometimes he wasn't sure Arthur did, the way the man ordered him around. If John could describe him in a layman's terms, he'd say Arthur was weird. The man couldn't decide his role in John's life and so John would try to do that for them.

"Guess we brothers though, sons of Dutch. Either way, coulda pulled my ass up sooner." 

The older man shrugged and handed John his own catch, tied up in the same line Arthur had hauled John out from the river with. "I bought fish from the store, once. You nearly died by this fish, I saved you and this fish, now you should be buyin' it from me to take home like you caught it. You owe me."

For John, Arthur was a hero. A broad man, sweeping logs to oblivion, throwing hay bales over his shoulder like they weighed not a nickle. And now the damn man was offering to give him hoax fish.

Enamored was a word John had yet to learn. But that did not stop him from running back home. 

"Dutch! Hosea! Got me a fish!"

Their newly acquired cook, a man named Pearson, fried it up that night. Threw it in the stew. 

"Good job, kid," Arthur said, half drunk over whiskey and a fire.

"Ain't no kid, Arthur. And you know I ain't got no fish."

The man wasn't that drunk, and appraised him. "Sure."

There was a heavy moment of silence.

"Reckon we take you on a train job, next," Arthur said, with a sip of whiskey behind it.

"Dutch said I ain't ready."

Arthur laughed at that, tossed what was left of the whiskey bottle into the fire. Cranked up a beer.. "Sure. Dutch ain't the one teach you how to shoot. I tell him you're ready, you're ready."

The evening was quiet after that. Arthur even mentioning a train job meant one was on the horizon. Hosea smoked and ducked to his tent, and Dutch ran off. It was the brothers left.

"What we do on a train job?"

The fire crackled and popped, Arthur silent a good few moments before spitting in the flames.

"We yell. But you're keeping your mouth shut. We wave around the guns. We swing our dicks... figuratively"

John spit into the fire also. "What do I do tonight?"

"Go to sleep; and don't actually swing your dick."

The fire popped, and the men and boys laid down. John looked over at Arthur's broad back and hoped he would grow into something like that some day. A man that didn't have to swing his dick to get a person to shut the fuck up. A man that didn't have to fake catching a catfish. 

Hell. A man that could swim.

If it came down to it, Dutch would probably value a man that could swim over a man that couldn't. 

John slept uneasy that night.


	3. Chapter 3

Sometimes Arthur fought.

John stayed back, those times, on the outskirts and watching, but never part of the action. 

Dutch fought Arthur for money or for fun, but somehow the big man always won. He was a pit bull once someone hit him in the face, and John knew it. He'd been punched into the ground more than once when Arthur saw red.

As far as John was concerned, there wasn't a fight Arthur couldn't win, and sometimes that tugged a little bit at him. John might've been skinny, but he wasn't a puss. He could take a hit.

"Put him down, Arthur!" 

Dutch's voice broke into John's thoughts as the crack of a cheek and probably a couple of knuckles snapped his winsomeness. 

The fight, as such as it was, was over. 

John often wondered at the way Arthur sat a horse. One-handed the way he did. John realized now it was probably because Arthur had cracked his knuckles more than once after Dutch fought him or he fought himself against another man. 

Coming up on his sixteenth birthday, John was prone to be petulant. But that right handed slap of Arthur tended to keep him in line. 

Still, as big and brutal as his acquired older brother could be, Arthur still got manhandled (for lack of a better term) at the hands of Dutch, Hosea, and yes, even Susan Grimshaw. And especially by Bessie. 

So John got to thinking he could probably put up a fight. He needled Arthur on a hunt. Easiest way to do it without Hosea and Dutch pulling the man off. 

"C'mon Arthur, I could have made that shot." "Arthur, are you crazy? That buck was ten foot away." "Arthur, you're a pussy," (when Arthur didn't shoot at a black bear).

It was that last one that got John smacked in the face with an open hand.

"Watch your mouth, John Marston."

He was the little brother, then. And he played his part. "Watch your fucking hands; Hosea is going to be pissed when he finds out you hit me."

Arthur was on top of him then, had him by his shirt collar. "You want to go tell daddy you got hit, then fine. Tell him. I don't care. You want a fight? They fight me daily. I don't care, and I'll win. You actually want to shut your trap and shoot a buck, then yeah I care about that, but ain't no man gonna be able to hunt with a loudmouth like you around. So just you consider that, Johnny, next time we're around the stew pot." He shook John on every enunciation.

"You're surly, you know that?" John responded.

Arthur collapsed in a huff and a laugh. Didn't even shrug John off when he gave him a soft slap. 

"Yeah, yeah."

That was the thing. John had seen Arthur in probably twenty fights. The man never lost them. Big and broad and sweeping, but he beat men bigger than him, too. 

A Great Dane would probably lose a fight to a pit bull. And Arthur was a pit.

John liked it that way, he thought, riding back to camp on his horse loaded with venison. 

He liked Arthur, too. His odd older brother, riding back with a couple of satchels full of bear.

Arthur had gone out and got the bear after all, and of course he had. It was too close to camp.

Arthur Arthur Arthur, John thought that night, heading into sleep. He woke up to the man brewing coffee and giving him that sideways grin.

"Gonna give me a cup?"

"Get it yourself," Arthur would say, spilling his coffee right in front of John's face.


	4. Chapter 4

The bottles shattered, one after another.

Johnny Marston, fifteen and with a gun in his hands, looked at Arthur in awe. 

"How the hell'd ya do that, Arthur?"

"Don't say hell..." the older man grumbled. He stalked over to the rocks in that rambling way of his and set up six more bottles. "Just... we're what? Twenty feet back? Blow them the hell up John."

John drew and hit two, sending four more bullets wide. "Shit," he spit after the curse.

Arthur groaned. "Don't say shit and don't spit. Unless it's into a fire or you're disrespectin' a man. Ain't civilized." Arthur sighed, put out. "John, we ain't ever gonna get you laid, when the day comes time."

John was indignant at that. "I ain't lookin' to get laid!"

"Christ." Arthur slapped at his back. "Ain't lookin' to get you laid today, neither, but some day I'm sure it'd be nice. For you."

John might have learned a way about his urges by now, but he still wasn't looking to bed any women. He didn't really see the value. And at Arthur's words, he blushed. Besides, Hosea was crushed after Bessie, Arthur after Eliza, and Dutch had started a god damn... gol dern war over Annabelle. 

A woman was the last thing on John's mind.

Arthur had restacked fresh bottles. "Now, look. This close, you ain't gotta worry 'bout range. Don't even gotta worry about breath. All you gotta do, is draw that pistol, get your hand on the hammer, and get that front sight on the bottle. Don't even worry 'bout the back. Front sight's all that matters. Watch."

John loved to watch Arthur sling. Time slowed for the man. He'd seen Arthur put a man down in a small town in the Grizzlies once; the man hadn't even been able to draw. Dropped dead in the street with Dutch and the gang twenty dollars richer.

Hell, John had the balls to errantly sneak onto a job more than once, and while Dutch was the man who'd cut John from the noose, it was Arthur that always shot their way out of a job. John knew that now.

Arthur drew and the world stopped for one second as six shots popped off from his Schofield. The bottles burst apart.

"See, Johnny? It don't matter this close. You draw, you cock, you shoot."

John grinned. "Cock, huh?"

Arthur rolled his eyes. "Shuddup. God damn kids..." he mumbled as he walked back and set up the last six bottles.

All of a sudden, John was nervous, his palms sweaty as he ran a finger down the butt of the Cattleman at his hip. 

"You got it, kid," Arthur slapped his shoulder. "Draw, cock, shoot. Front sight."

John nodded. "If I don't hit 'em?"

"Well," Arthur spat, despite his insistence earlier on John's good behavior, "then I guess it's just me and Josiah riding on after that stagecoach tomorrow with Dutch, and not you."

With a swallow and a grimace, John turned and drew. Slapped his hand on the hammer after every pull of the trigger, but everything just came too fast. Three bottles gone, three left standing. John's shoulders drooped.

Arthur whistled. "Well now, looks like we got ourselves a baby gunslinger in the bunch."

"A-Arthur?" John hated the crack in his voice. "I only got three."

"Well, kid," Arthur lowered his voice, "One thing about people; they're a lot bigger than beer bottles. Three outta six ain't bad; that's gonna be six outta six if they're people. But you better be damn sure when you pull that trigger, Johnny." 

John had been intimidated then awed by Arthur Morgan from his first day in camp. Hosea was Dutch's confidant but Arthur was Dutch's gun and everyone knew it. Even the law had started to pick up on it, and Arthur's bounty had skyrocketed. As far as John was concerned, a confidant was important, but a gun was necessary in their line of work. For him at fifteen, Arthur was God.

"Damn sure, huh?" John was trying to act cocky, confident. He wanted this stagecoach job.

Arthur had been walking away, turned and strode back to him. "Damn sure," Arthur growled. "Because when you point that gun and pull that trigger next time, you ain't bustin' no beer bottle. You're taking a man's life, and when you see that, Johnny, you lose a part of you that you ain't ever gonna get back. So yeah. You be damn sure."

John stood stock-still as Arthur stalked off. Behind him, he heard Dutch's voice. "He ready?"

"Yeah," was Arthur's gruff grumble. "Yeah, he's ready."

Still staring at the bottles, the three left on the rocks, John flinched when he felt Dutch's heavy hand come down on his shoulder. When he looked up, the man was grinning.

"C'mon, son. Let's go rob us a stage."

Killing a man you're robbing was a lot different from killing a man to save your life. John found that out that night. And Arthur was right. You'd better be damn sure, before you pull that trigger.


	5. Chapter 5

"Jooooohn Marston," Arthur rumbled and John grimaced. 

Successful job or not, he hated when Arthur got like this. Too deep in the whiskey and fresh outta whatever grief he'd caused himself.

"Piss off, Arthur."

"Johnny fuckin' Marston," Arthur clapped him around the shoulders and drug him from the fire. "Johnny Marston, with the wife and the kid on the way and pulling the safe on the last job, too. You're really risin' on up, ain'tcha boah?"

John shrugged him off. "Ain't like that, Arthur, and you know it ain't." 

"Sure." Arthur kicked a stone down the path he'd landed them on away from camp. "Sure, sure. Ain't like that." He cut John a shrewd eye. And his next sentence told John the man was well and truly sauced. "How'd you end up Dutch's golden boy anyhow?"

John rolled his eyes. He was sauced, too. They all got a little sauced after a job like that. "You ever think about the fact, Arthur, that Dutch don't roll into a big job like that without you?"

"Hmph." Arthur sat down petulantly, up against a tree and outside the scout fire set up on the camp perimeter. 

"It..." John sighed and walked away. He was a little wise beyond his years, but then, his father hadn't beat the snot out of him day in and day out the way Lyle Morgan had Arthur. John had felt injustice... but not at the hands of his own folks. And definitely not at the hands of Dutch and Hosea. "It ain't like what you're sayin'." 

They'd celebrated John's twenty-first birthday with a robbery, Dutch-style. Rolled in on a small town bank south of Tumbleweed and rolled out with about a thousand dollars. It was a big haul, and yeah, John had been allowed to try his hand at cracking the safes.

And John didn't understand why he got stuck babysitting a man ten years his senior, anyway. Arthur always took this drunk shit out on him. 

"Gonna be the right hand man soon, John. Whutchu gonna do then, when you got your kid at stake and that bounty rising?" 

John skipped a rock across the river they'd bedded down against. The camp's fires burned in the distance. The irony that Arthur was the man that'd taught him to skip rocks was not lost on him. 

Arthur had taught John to shoot. To fish, to hunt, to camp. The man had damn near taught him everything, more than his father, or Dutch. Even more than Hosea. 

And yet... John could see it. Dutch treated John better and he had no idea why. If a chore at camp got left behind, Susan was slapping Arthur's head, not John's. If a job went south, it was usually because Arthur didn't step in quick enough, didn't pull up that big and bad enforcer routine Dutch made him play. Arthur was six foot one, and damn near weighed two hundred pounds, at a guess. He was a gunslinger and a man with forearms that spanned some men's calves and thighs. And Dutch never took it well when his enforcer didn't perform.

Arthur was thirty-one, and little Johnny might as well have been a kid. It didn't matter to Dutch that John's quick hand and sure shot were fostered by the man he called his first son. All that mattered to Dutch was that sure as shit, John's draw was starting to get quicker.

"I... I ain't rightly know what I'm going to do... And," John skipped another rock, "for the record, I don't know that's my kid."

Arthur snorted then and crossed his legs, leaned up against that damn tree with his hat pulled low and a bottle of whiskey in his hand. "Reckon you best believe her. I ain't seen a man 'sides you between her legs in months and that includes Dutch. That woman chose your dumbass. You best take care of her."

John prickled. "Yeah? Like you took care of Eliza?"

It was seconds between before John remembered just how much bigger Arthur was than him. Height didn't matter. Arthur was a solid block of muscle. "You shut your God damn mouth, boy, before I break your jaw so hard you can't talk 'til next year." His forearms levered John's shoulders into the ground, his knee up between John's legs and primed for demolishing the younger man's nuts. 

Arthur shook him. "You treat Abigail like shit and I will run your skinny ass outta camp, you understand, boy? She might just take it, too, when a man who's learnt to be a man steps up to take care of her, and maybe I make her my wife instead of yours."

Arthur being drunk or not, John had enough. It took him a couple of seconds to leverage himself before he finally flipped Arthur's drunk ass over and had him pinned.

John was seeing red. But like Arthur had taught him, he controlled it. And then he couldn't. With one fist snapped back and then landed, he'd broken Arthur's nose. "I don't think that's my kid, and Dutch still don't just take me on jobs where he needs a gun. He takes you, Arthur." John slapped him. "You. You're the gun, you're the right hand. It's always gonna be you."

In classic Morgan fashion, Arthur laughed as he cocked his head and spit blood, wiping his mouth. He could have beat the shit out of John, then. He really could have. Could have beat the younger man to death. Instead, with the sound of the river rushing past them, he laid on his back and capitulated, John straddling his hips. "Johnny, you damn fool. Got a woman that loves you. Dutch treats you like a damn king. You busted a grand out of that safe, today. What more do you want?"

And then John did what he usually did. He made a damn fool out of himself, leaned down, and kissed Arthur smack on the lips, blood and all. 

They'd been on jobs, raids, heists... up against stagecoach guards, sheriffs, and recently in one robbery, the Pinkertons. Lawmen, miners, Skinner brothers and the Murfree brood.

John had never once seen Arthur look surprised. Until now.

"Johnny..."

"It's..." John spit off to the side and swiveled his hips off Arthur's landing beside him on his ass. "It's John, Arthur."

"Alright, John," Arthur said slowly, moving up from the ground. Pulling out a pack of cigarettes and offering one along with a match to John. 

They lit them in unison. 

Arthur scratched the back of his neck and hairline, sighing, as the smoke rose. Sounding suddenly sober, "You... That's a road we can't travel. You know that, right?"

John, as always, was insolent. "God knows, anything Arthur says goes."

"You're havin' a kid."

"And what do you have?"

As far as Arthur was concerned, the God damn twerp always had been too smart for his own good. Arthur swallowed and tried to come up with an answer. "I... I got the camp. You and Abi. Miss Tilly. The thing you're lookin' for? I ain't made for that life... John."

John let out a passive grunt. "You mean, Dutch ain't made you for that life."

"I..." Arthur was at a loss. He had never even considered that Dutch may have turned him into a man not made for a certain way. Mary? Eliza? It wasn't Dutch's fault. Right?

John stood up then, and crushed the butt of his cigarette against the rocks of the riverbed. He looked out across where the rapids formed and shuddered. "Dutch mighta made you Arthur, but he didn't make me. You did. Taught me to ride, taught me to shoot," John chuffed. "Taught me how to God damn stitch that day the O'Driscoll boy grazed your arm. You... you ain't my father."

Arthur sighed and stood up, too, walking over John's way. "Nah, nah I ain't." He patted John's cheek, softly, ignorant of his own blood streaking the man's lips. Sniffed. "But I ain't this either John. Never could be to anyone else and damn sure can't be to you."

At that point, for the first time in years, John felt his eyes water. He was a God damn fool. Hopeful until the end though... "So... then you're what? My brother?"

Arthur patted him on the shoulder. "Christ, kid." The big man started to walk away. "John..." he turned and John turned hopefully back to him. "We're brothers til the day I die."

John nodded and skipped another rock across the water. It should have been a victory, that day. The first time he'd beaten Arthur Morgan's ass. Instead, the words "'Til the day I die," rang through his head on repeat. As John set up six bottles across the river on rocks, he strode back, whipped around, and fired off, taking all six. He spun his Cattleman around his finger and slammed it back into his holster. 

Morgan was an asshole, but he wasn't going before John was, and John Marston would make damn sure of that.


	6. Chapter 6

"What the hell you doin', boy?"

Hosea's voice wasn't usually that sharp, and Arthur very rarely looked that worried. 

"Just a sip a'whiskey I'm givin' him, Hosea, ain't nothin'-" 

A cuff on the ear ended that conversation very quickly.

John wasn't ever real sure what happened to Arthur, when Dutch or Hosea took him outside the lines of the scout fire. But he knew it was nothing good.

At least this time, it was Hosea. John wasn't the best at reading, schooling, shooting, or calming the horses, but he knew what a bruised cheek looked like. And he knew those came from Dutch.

When Arthur came back, he was a sulky mess. 

John had run with the gang damn near four years now. They'd recently decided he had enough clout with a repeater that he could stand on watch. Most of that, he figured, had to do with Hosea getting a little sicker and old Bill Williamson getting a little more sober. Arthur had apparently decided that was worth a drink.

Still, a sip of whiskey hit a sixteen year old hard, and the lines of reality were a little blurry when Arthur stumbled back to camp, Hosea striding past the campfire in an annoyed thunder. 

They were quiet, just him and Arthur. 

But John never stayed quiet very long. "They're wrong, you know," he spit into the fire.

"'Bout what?"

"Ain't no kid, Arthur. I seen about as much as big ol' Bill over there," he nodded his head at the tree line. And didn't expect the cuff he had coming from the older man.

"Shut your mouth, Johnny. We all seen shit, but that man was in the war."

John was affronted. "You ain't even believe the shit he fought for, Artie, stop actin' like you did."

The fire crackled.

"Mmm."

Arthur pulled out his journal at that point, started sketching.

The pop of the logs seemed louder than any other night John had heard it. 

"You get real indignant when you drink, y'know that? Think I'm not gonna humor you no more, keep that whiskey locked up."

John cracked a smile. Cuffed or not, told too by Hosea or not, Arthur always had a little bit of sass. John wasn't too sure how he felt about Bill Williamson. The man was a crack shot and a quick gun, but weren't no one in camp quicker than Arthur. They didn't need Bill. But then again, they didn't need him either, so John kept his mouth shut.

"Arthur?"

The silence stretched.

"Art?" John tried a different tact. He knew he was the youngest in camp, but Dutch treated Arthur more like a kid than a brother. Even he was old enough to see it. Somehow, Arthur and John were both sons of Dutch, despite the age differences.

"Yeah?" a heavy sigh.

"What do they do, when they take you outside the scout fire?"

Arthur smiled grimly, pulled the chew from his lip and tossed it into the fire. "Nothing good. All deserved though."

John was sick with himself, then. Arthur had looked out for him. Taken care of him. Taught him to sit a horse. And here he was breaking into the man's whiskey and getting him in trouble. 

John stood. "You're better."

"Johnny..."

He walked away from the fire. "You're better than that, Arthur."

"John!"

On the way to his tent, he saw Hosea sitting out, smoking a cigarette, eyes like a fox. Sharp and pointed, staring right at him. 

John didn't care, with all the brazen balls of being sixteen. "Y'all treat him like shit! Treat Bill better than him and he ain't half the shot."

The slap came unexpected, but true. And John backed away to his tent. Behind him, he heard Dutch.

"Hosea!"

"Someone needs to tell the little shit; won't be Arthur and apparently won't be you."

The flaps to his tent closed. Didn't block the sound.

"He's a quick gun, Hosea. Art taught him, himself."

"We should have taken him into town, Dutch. Given him a shot with the orphanage."

"Give him two years, he's going to be faster than Arthur; looking like he's going to be taller, too. Won't be a Pinkerton or thieve among us can stop those two. Hell Colm-"

"Colm will kill us all, Dutch, if you let him. Or Milton will. And it don't matter how quick Arthur or John are with a gun. They aren't your bodyguards. As of right now, they're your sons."

John could practically hear Dutch smile. "Well then, ain't no man ever been so well-versed in freedom and the ways to strive for it."

The next day, Arthur took John back out to shoot.

"Look, it ain't hard John. You breath, normal-like. This bottle? Look at it like it's floating. The next one, too. Rip the lever, and you'll be just fine."

"What do you see?"

"Huh?" Arthur stood in front of John, struck out in the woods, perplexed.

"What do you see, you shoot so well? All I see is a bottle but you..." John shrugged, "You see somethin' else."

Arthur looked down, shuffled the small pebble overlay at his feet. Ran a hand through the sweat-damp hair at the nape of his neck. "I uh..."

Off in the distance, a coyote yipped. They were getting closer to the desert every day.

"Well... I see red, Johnny. And not much else."

"Red." That was the answer? Arthur saw red. John couldn't shoot the hen off a post from ten feet and Arthur's answer was he saw red.

Arthur took his hat off, a rather unusual occurrence. "I see red and not much else. There's a difference, John, between shooting calm and shooting like you mean it."

Sure. John got that. 

"John..." Arthur wrapped an arm around his slender shoulders. John was about as tall, but the big man was broader than a god damn barn. "You remember that farmer back in Chicago?"

Stupid, stupid question. Of course John remembered him.

"Arthur."

"He liked you didn't he? Liked you just enough to hang you."

"Arthur."

"All because you were a poor boy trying to steal a goat."

"Arthur!"

"Remember that noose, Johnny? That feel worse, or did the hunger, eatin' at your belly..." 

"Art-" a last desperate plea.

"Breathe, Johnny."

It was then that Arthur lobbed not one, not two or three, but five bottles in the air. 

"Shoot."

John levered the repeater and they shattered, one by one.

Arthur gave him a grim smile. Slipped him a small flask of whiskey he'd held in his back pocket. "Don't tell Hosea. And definitely don't tell Dutch."

At the Scout fire, bottle in hand, John heard Dutch ask Arthur, behind him, "Well, how's the shooting coming son?"

Tried not to be offended when Arthur answered, "Damn kid couldn't hit the broad side of a barn unless it's standing still. Can't take him on a gang raid, Dutch. Ain't no way."


	7. Chapter 7

"What's your issue with'im, Arthur?"

They were out past the scout fire, trading off watch. Arthur rarely stood watch anymore, but sometimes the big man had to fill in. He wasn't past sharing a nip of whiskey and a bit of gossip though, on occasion and with the right person.

"What you talkin' 'bout?"

John sniffed and rubbed his sleeve against his nose. It had started to get cold across the prairie. "Your issue with Herr Strauss?"

Arthur huffed. Pulled a can of chew out of the pocket of his flannel shirt and grabbed a wad. Sniffed as the mint with the tobacco woke him up. "I ain't... I don't have no issue with Strauss," he hissed the name and John caught it, eyed him slyly.

"Got an issue with Dutch then? Bringing him on?"

John got a cuff on the ear for that one.

"Shut your mouth. No, I ain't got no issue with Dutch. I just..." Arthur was looking like he was starting to regret offering to take watch. That was John though. Shifty and smart, in the ways Arthur wasn't, even ten years apart. Arthur could read and draw, sing a song sometimes, and shoot a pistol just a bit better... But John got people, sometimes, in a way Arthur didn't.

Arthur rubbed at the back of his neck.

John watched him, intensely, those brown eyes of his setting in against Arthur in a heavy stare. 

Arthur hefted a sigh, put upon, almost. "I just don't feel good takin' poor folk for all what they're worth, that's all."

"They signed the dotted line." John shrugged. He could read people, but half the time, it damn sure didn't seem like he cared about 'em.

Arthur spit a drip of his chew. "They did."

"They knew what they signed up for, Arthur." John scratched his back, back and forth against the tree he was leaned up against. He'd gotten older, noticeably. His high husk of a voice had deepened, ever slightly, into a low rasp. The stubble of his goatee had gradually turned into a beard. Before the camp's eyes, he'd become a man. Twenty, and young and dumb and full of... well... He was smart, but still an idiot.

Different than Arthur. He was slender and spooky. John could sneak up on just about any person and use his knife. Valuable, Dutch called him. And Arthur would begrudgingly say the same, if only that John could call a man out in a poker game faster than Hosea. Give him a few years, he'd be just as good a con man if he could get over how awkward it sounded on his voice to lie.

As for Arthur, himself... well he'd finally saw fit to start treating the man like his partner. Johnny... Little John... considering the kid was the camp's second best shot at this point... He at least owed the kid some honesty.

"They mighta signed up, but that's just because the man signin' them up looked like Leopold, and not like me'r you. Sold a bed of lies, them folk."

John chuffed. "True." 

In the backwoods, the scout fire popped as the flames hit a knot of wood.

"It's a smooth lie, John. Good for us but..." Arthur spat into the fire. "Ah, hell. That kinda lie don't do much for us, and it hurts everyone in between it. Me..." He stopped there.

John stepped all over that. Big ol' Art? With a weakness? John turned cocky and brave, asked, "You, what?"

Arthur's grin was more a wince, a thing of pain splitting his face as he looked up to the stars. "Me included, John. It hurts me included."

There was silence around the fire. John was twenty, sure. And Dutch hung the moon and the stars on him. But Dutch didn't ask him to do the things he asked of Arthur. Dutch took John along when he needed a conman, a kid with an honest face and a smart mouth, even if he couldn't read very well. John was a pretty good gun, but Arthur was better.

When Dutch needed the shit beat out of someone, he took Arthur.

John sat there, twenty and dumb, but not stupid.

"Take me."

Arthur huffed. "Nahhh..." scuffed his boot along the side of the goatskin he was sitting on. 

"I'm twenty, Arthur. A grown man. A grown man in this camp," John could be damn persuasive when he wanted to be. "I'm supposed to be your right hand man, ain't I? Then I should know what you do."

He damn near shrank back at the side-eye and tone Arthur gave him at the next sentence. "You wanna know what I really do, Little John?"

He didn't shrink back, though. He tossed his beer bottle into the fire, popped another. "Yeah."

"Alright, John. We ride at dawn."

\-----

John expected to ride up to a villa, as close as they were to New Austin at that point. Somewhere they could beat the snot out of some dignitary who'd found himself in a bit of desperation and make it turn into gold. Surely that was what the business Leopold was running. 

Instead, at the cusp of dawn, as the sun broke golden across the prairie-lands, they trotted up to a small, rotting ranch-house. The land was burnt to a crisp, obviously the victim of a scant wet season, and even the fence-line looked destitute, with posts either busted or half reinforced. 

"Arthur?"

"You wanted to see this, John," the man grumbled, Boudicca slowing to a trot. "So you see it," his voice shifted as he called out, "Mr. Embry!"

His shout damn near shook the ground. John flinched... and he hadn't done that around Arthur in years.

"Mr. Embry, you come on out now, or we're gonna have to have a real talkin' to!"

The door to the small home swung open. A boy's voice; "Sir?"

"Christ," Arthur muttered, sweeping a hand down his face before clearing his throat and calling out, "Get your daddy or your momma, boy. Get'em now before we light that torn up barn a'yours on fire."

"Arthur!" John hissed.

"Steven!" her voice rang out from behind, as the lank form of the boy was pushed from the doorway, his mother stepping into view, "Steven, you step back now."

"But, Momma-"

"Step. Back. Don't you 'but Momma' me right now." 

And then she was in the door frame, all fire and glory, red hair alight by the lanterns behind her. "You're here, then?"

Arthur shifted uncomfortably on his horse. Boudicca shifted against him; it seemed even his horse was disgusted with him, as far as John could tell. "Yes..." he cleared his throat again and his voice dropped, "Yes ma'am, I am. You and your man... forty dollars you owe us, and you know it."

"Forty-" she gasped.

It was clear. She hadn't known.

"Paul took out forty dollars?"

Arthur swung off his horse. Strode up the steps and straight up to her. "Where is Paul, ma'am?"

"He's dead, you degenerate!" She didn't back down. Didn't flinch when Arthur leaned down into her space.

John turned his horse, damn near persuaded to gallop on away. This... this wasn't what he'd thought it would be.

Still, he saw the slight hunch in Arthur's shoulders, before he cracked his neck and rolled them back. "Ma'am, I don't care if he's dead, dyin', or six feet in the dirt!" 

John pulled back a little more. 

"All I care about is the God damn forty dollars!"

There was the sick sound of a pump action shotgun. The rack and snap of a chambered round. The boy, barely fifteen as far as John could tell, held it out the door, and had it pointed right at Arthur's chest. 

"Don't you touch her, mister." 

John flicked his hand down to his holster, hesitant. He didn't need to, though.

When Arthur squared up, it was something fierce. And he did... square up, that is, on that woman and that fifteen year old boy. 

"You wanna land birdshot in me, boy, you damn well can, but I assure you, before I die, your Momma and you are gonna be pumped full'a lead," and at that, Arthur hauled the boy, shotgun and all, out from the doorframe to the patio by his collar. "And I'm gonna give you a tip, boy, lead kills faster than birdshot." He shook him for emphasis, ignoring the swift slap Mrs. Embery gave him... She didn't dare close in on him, with his grip around her son's neck. 

But he growled, all the same. "And you, ma'am, may wanna watch your hands before you and your boy both end up next to good ol' Paul, before your boy is buried in six feet of his own daddy's dirt."

The scene was quiet then, for damn near a minute, save for the heavy breathing.

What followed would haunt John in snapshots. 

The kid's mother stepping inside; hauling away from the confrontation only to come back to the door with payment. Arthur... taking it. Despite this family's lives. Even Arthur's horse nickered her disapproval. 

The landing of a fat bag of jewelry in Arthur's palm.

"There... you fucking bastard." 

Arthur coughed and spit off the side of the small steps up her porch. "I uh, I doubt that'll cover forty, ma'am. Looks about thirty to me."

"Arthur!" John called up. 

She shrugged. "Take our cow. Why not? You've taken everything else. Might as well take the milk cow with you too, you fucking bastard."

Arthur damn near didn't even argue, lassoing the animal. They could sell a milk cow to the farm over from camp. Wouldn't cover the rest of the debt, but would be damn near close.

"I'm uh... I'm real sorry, ma'am, but your husband knew what he was taking on." Arthur offered the placation over his shoulder, as they began to ride off.

The consolation seemed worse.

And the cow...

Well. She died. 

Halfway between the farm over and the camp, she up and died on them. Colic, stress; Arthur just didn't know. 

"God dammit."

Typically, John would have chimed in with, 'It ain't your fault.'

But this... well this was. This was all Arthur's fault.

"We're..." John stared at the poor cow. "Arthur, we're henchmen."

"Ain't nothin' of the sort, John."

"I... I ain't trust Strauss."

"And I told you not to."

They were both sick with themselves. And they had to figure out how to cover the extra ten dollars of debt.

Arthur turned then, cracked his fist against a tree. "God dammit!"

"Arthur!"

John was on him, then, pulling the big man back. "This ain't you, brother," he said, slapping lightly at Arthur's chin, grabbing him by the jawline and forcing eye contact. "This ain't you."

The land had cooled, and the steam from their huffs of breath rose between them.

Arthur grumbled. Low in his chest. He wrapped his gloved hand up around John's throat, just the same. Shouldered him back up against that same tree. "Who am I, then?"

John had no answer for that. Last time, they'd been sons of Dutch. But that would make them brothers.

And when Arthur's lips descended on his, they were very much not brothers, not now. Not ever again. 

John didn't know who Arthur Morgan was; not exactly. And this was the worst example he'd seen yet, molded by Strauss's insistence and Dutch's greed. But... Arthur coulda put that mother and her son in a hole in the ground, and probably taken another dollar or two plus the horse, and he hadn't. Hadn't even really tried beyond a snarl and a growl.

It was rough, then. Rough as it could be without ripping either one of them up. 

Arthur had him, there next to that damn tree. An urgent kiss followed by hips pressing, shoving John into the dirt and following him right on down. Pants to the ground, and thankfully, union suits left behind in lieu of the heat.

Who was Arthur Morgan?

Spit and precum for lube, and a tight gasp from John. To Arthur's credit, he worked John slowly, opening him as gently as he could. Tempers were flared, but here Arthur took his time.

When all was said and done, Arthur rolled off John, who was left with his own spill across his belly. 

Boudicca nickered off in the distance. A soft sort of sound against the gasping of their breath. 

John panted, staring up at the stars. Arthur had threatened a woman today... her son. At the order of Herr Strauss. Dutch's henchman. Stole the poor woman's cow.

But Arthur had also put a bullet in the cow, saved her from her distress. And he'd be an idiot to think John hadn't noticed him swipe a sleeve across his face as he drew her from memory, cracked that journal open wide to spill his guilt, damn near crying. He could have killed the woman too, and her son. Those were the rules. You paid debt or you paid life; it was one of the two.

And then... well... then Arthur had gone and put his dick in John's ass. That was a whole separate issue because John loved Arthur for all he was worth, though he'd never tell the cocky bastard.

"Who the hell am I, John?

Right now, butted up against Arthur, smelling their scent, his own cock spent across his belly, soft and satisfied John couldn't work out the question. "What you mean?"

Arthur was sated, and frankly as far as John could tell, sleepy, but he turned his head towards him nonetheless. "A murderer.. s'what I am. A'int nothing' more."

"Mmm."

Arthur palmed John's face, pushing him away as he stood up, slipped his arm from underneath John's head and then pulled up his pants. "This ain't happening again."

"You kept her alive," John pushed up on his elbow, refused the dignity of pulling up his own pants. He didn't care. "That woman. Her and the boy."

Arthur's back was to him as he headed for the horses. "I may be a murderer. I ain't a monster."

John gambled his last card. "Maybe you're both."

Arthur looked back at the man, then. Buckled on his gun belt. Swung up on Boadicca. Leveled John, in that appraising stare. "Maybe I am..." A spur in the sides with a, "Ya!" And then they were gone, off in the night.

John pulled up his pants then. 

Who was Arthur Morgan?

Well. He didn't rightly know.


	8. Chapter 8

John had been on jobs. 

Big ones. Train jobs, bank jobs, ridden out with Arthur on Strauss's little missions.

This was his first job taking point with the gang.

The bank wasn't a big take. Big enough, but it wouldn't get them West. Still, Dutch (and actually it had been Hosea's idea) was practical, and practically cold in his practicality. 

If Arthur died as the life he lived signified he should, then they'd need another gun. And another executioner. Which was a title they frequently left off of Arthur's resume, but then again, enforcer was a much more civilized title than, "Man who will beat the fuck out of you... To death."

But Dutch and Hosea were practical, and should Colm's bullet ring true one day, they'd need another man to step up.

John was that man. At twenty-three and a budding father, John's eye was better than any man in the gang. Almost any man.

The job went fine, despite Arthur grumbling every four minutes about John's "shit planning." 'Door's closer on that side, we shoulda put Bill there; he's useless anyway. They gonna look at Javier cause he's Mexican, ain't no one gonna believe that cover you made up. I don't want Karen nowhere near-' 'God dammit, Arthur!'

At the end of the day, the bank had worked out. They'd got the take, no one was hurt, and life was, unarguably, better. Food and drink for days.

Days until one also young Abigail Roberts approached John. Approached him with the, "It's yours."

He spent the beginning of his first night as a father on the shores of Flat Iron Lake.

"I'm gone."

"You're a fool."

Five words between two men with a loose definition of brotherhood.

"I ain't that kid's father."

Arthur kicked at the dirt - a rightful enemy. "Who is, Johnny Marston? You been sticking your dick in every willing hole in camp. And outside it."

"Jealous?"

Sometimes John forgot a punch from Arthur could ring his bell into the next century. 

John spit blood. "I'm not that kid's father, Art." Who could know, anyway? Abigail'd had half the guys in the camp. Hell, she'd probably had Arthur . And here John was, twenty-three, Dutch already telling him by action if not word that he'd replace the man in front of him; who was he to blame? "I'm sticking my dick in you. We fathers by proxy?"

"You don't even know what proxy means, you down south fuckin' hick." 

It was said in jest, but it did strike John. Arthur wasn't prone to saying 'fuck,' under any circumstance.

John slid down to the shoreline with Arthur next to him. He had hero worship. There was no other way to explain it. But he was also now a grown-ass man, so it didn't really matter that Arthur was big and solid and warm next to him. "You're asking me to take up this kid, and that means I'm leaving you."

At that, Arthur scoffed, kicking a pebble down into the lake. "You never had me, John."

The silence settled heavy.

"It was fuckin', you and me. And now? You have a kid."

It wasn't fucking. It never had been. Not for John. 

And he saw himself then, in red hot rage and in reflection as the man Arthur was. Standing over poor farmers, beating the shit out of them for Strauss. Dutch's boy, already fully replaceable. Helpless in the face of Hosea's sickness. That was John, in the mirror. But it didn't have to be.

"I guess it was. Fucking, at least." John stood, saddled up, and drove. He drove west of the lake. He drove west of the camp. West of his son, and definitely west of Arthur. He drove.


End file.
